Stephanie Falbo

Life from Death Transplant coordinator touches families in times of sorrow

Story by MEG NUGENT / Photos by ARISTIDE ECONOMOPOULOS

Stephanie Falbo has built a career in the company of people facing their most terrible moments.

She's seen them punch walls with rage, get into fist fights, wail in despair and sink quietly to the floor, overwhelmed by sadness.

When she hears news of an accident or a house fire, she knows she may find herself at a hospital a few hours later, reaching out to distraught relatives of the victim.

"I'm not only hearing it on television, I'm now going to experience it," Falbo says. "I'm going to experience another family's pain. And it's a privilege to be allowed into their lives at their most horrific time."

Falbo feels this way because she gets to offer what she considers a golden opportunity to the heartbroken relatives: "To give the gift of life on their loved one's behalf."

"With this job," she adds, "in death there could be life."

"How cool is that?"

Falbo, 36, is a registered nurse and a transplant coordinator for the New Jersey Organ and Tissue Sharing Network -- The Sharing Network, for short. A big part of her job is to approach families while they're struggling with shock from a sudden loss and try to convince them to donate their loved one's organs to a stranger who will probably die without them.

"It's got to be tough approaching parents, knowing what she's going to be asking them for," says Peter Markou.

Markou and his wife, Ann, met Falbo in the fall of 2006 at Chilton Memorial Hospital in Pompton Plains, when their 31-year-old son, Justin, died from a drug overdose. The couple consented to donate some of their son's organs, a decision that saved the lives of seven people.

"Once we had made the decision, it was obvious we had to be handled with kid gloves," says Markou, who lives in upstate New York. "She took us into another room and told us what was going to be done, that the surgery would take place in an antiseptic operating room, that they would be treating Justin as though he were still alive and that the body gets the respect it needed. Here was a woman who had to take us through the whole organ transplant process and her overall demeanor was that of a very caring person who had a very tough job."

"She is the Erin Brocovich of transplant coordinators," says her boss, Bill Reitsma, director of clinical services for the Sharing Network. "We've had very timid people, transplant coordinators, who've said, 'The family's very upset, we could never approach them.'

"The biggest part of this job is to not be afraid to seek the family out, to identify with them, help them find answers, satisfy their needs and help them to see the good that can come from making an organ donation," Reitsma says. "What I see in Stephanie is a willingness to fully engage and put herself out there to the family, to create a personal relationship."

Neighborhood connections
Falbo's childhood offered many opportunities to hone her gift for bonding with people. She grew up in Wallington, on the same close-knit block where she now owns a house just two doors down from her parents, Mary and Frank.

Falbo has also enjoyed a long-standing relationship -- 14 years -- with boyfriend Todd Catalano, a funeral director and a stand-up comic.

"I'm good at dealing with families after death. She's good at dealing with families at death," he says.

Falbo was raised on a street filled with kids, many of whom she remains close to today. They were always in each other's houses, yards and above-ground swimming pools, tearing around on their bikes or going to the movies.

"In the summer, I would take as many kids as I could fit into the car and go to the movies, and she made sure everybody was asked to go," says Mary Falbo. "She never wanted to hurt anybody's feelings."

Falbo also displayed her bent for nursing at an early age.

"She always showed this nurturing side," her mother recalls. "She would bring home anything that was hurt. It could be a worm, a frog. If somebody got hurt, she'd be the first one to run over and try to help or do something for that person. The other kids would run away because they'd be afraid, and she would run toward the problem to help who fell off the bike or who hurt their nose."

"I always thought it was important to take care of people when they are sick," Falbo says. "I loved knowing I could help someone else. That was pretty powerful for me."

After graduating from Mountainside Hospital School of Nursing in Montclair in 1993, she went to work in the intensive care unit at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center because she was eager to care for critically ill patients.

"I wanted the experience of working in a difficult environment because it challenged me," she says. "As an ICU nurse, I could monitor a patient and stop something fatal from happening."

But she also found herself gravitating to "death and dying."

A new beginning

"I remember seeing patients who were older and, basically, on their death beds. They had no family. They were going to die alone, and I didn't think that was acceptable," says Falbo. "I would stop what I was doing and close the curtain to their room. I held their hands and told them it was okay to go. Death is not supposed to be ugly or horrible. It's supposed to be a new beginning."

There were plenty of situations on the ICU floor when family members remained involved, and Falbo was drawn to them, as well.

"I saw families sitting alone, crying, and the nurses were so busy caring for someone else. It was easy for me to stop what I was doing, go into the room, put my hand on a shoulder and ask, 'Are you okay?' and let them talk and know they weren't alone."

"She went out of her way to take care of them -- not only the patients but the families, too. She went far beyond what you would normally expect a nurse to do," says nephrologist Sadanand Palekar, Falbo's boss in the ICU.

He recommended her when the Sharing Network had an opening for a transplant coordinator in 1999. He was also concerned she might burn out after six years in the intensive care unit.

"She wasn't getting burned out yet, but it happens to everyone, and I didn't want to waste her talents," Palekar recalls.

Falbo, who admits she was beginning to get bored with intensive care work, has lasted nine years as a transplant coordinator, while most leave after about three.

"We rarely advertise because the job is so intense," Reitsma says. "Quite frankly, we have terrible hours. You have to work from 10 to 16 days out of the month on call. You're committed to being available to respond to any (organ) donor and any hospital anywhere in the state at any time of the day or night."

Falbo jokes that this is why she knows where all the Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks are.

"She also has the ability to detach and I don't mean that in a negative way," says Reitsma. "When she's with the families, she's fully engaged, but she can step out of that. It takes a special person to be able to detach emotionally and intellectually from all that goes into talking to a family that's losing somebody."

Simple pleasures
Catalano, who does his own share of family support and detachment as a funeral director, puts it this way: "When we're done with our day, we can walk away from things and find greater joy with our life because we see a lot of people in so much pain. It kind of puts things in perspective, and we can go back to work the next day and help another family."

Falbo also surrounds herself with plenty of creature comforts to help her de-stress when she's home on a "respite day." She fills her living room with soothing, neutral colors, lit candles and soft jazz. She and her boyfriend delight in simple pleasures -- long drives, weekends down the Shore, going out to dinner with friends.

"I love to garden. I love to bake," she says.

Part of Falbo's success in her job is due to her never failing to observe what Reitsma describes as "the cardinal rule" in the field of organ donation: "Never bring it up until the family really understands their loved one has died."

"I have to be very cautious about how I bring it up and, if the family is not ready, I'm not bringing it up," Falbo says.

The majority of organ procurements that take place are from patients who are brain dead, a state that is often misunderstood. "Your heart can still be beating, but you're still dead because the brain has completely ceased to function. The brain has died," says Falbo, who will draw pictures and have lengthy conversations to ensure family members truly understand.

"I tell them, 'I'm going to explain to you what's happened and how this has happened and why it's happened, and what the hospital did to try to save your loved one's life.'

"Sometimes, when families are told their loved one is brain dead, they become hysterical. They're punching walls, they're screaming, crying, they pass out," Falbo says. "I never know what I'm going to be walking into, but my job is to help the family make an informed decision about organ donation.

"Sometimes, I think, 'Oh my God, how do I do this? This is crazy!'

"But I do it because I know it's the right thing to do and I believe in it," says Falbo. "And I know how to defuse a bad situation."

Falbo also works hard to provide the same kind of calming comforts for the families of organ donors that she seeks when she needs to de-stress.

She will dim lights and play music. She will fetch glasses of water and snacks.

She will also reach out to mourners in a very literal way.

"She was not afraid to touch us -- to put her hand on your arm, to reach across the table and take your hand," says Ann Markou, "and to be able to sense when that would be okay to do.

"She is amazingly kind."

Additional insight:Personality trait: Tenacity What she sometimes does after work: "I come home and cry. How could you not?" Favorite eye-catcher: "I love petunias, cascading petunias. I love my hanging baskets." When she and her boyfriend first met: "He took a tissue and folded it up into a rose and gave it to me without saying anything. I thought that was kind of neat."